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Northern Iowa loses 63-60 to No. 23 Creighton

January 11th, 2012 by Ric Hanson

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Northern Iowa kept Creighton star Doug McDermott under control, and the Panthers started the game making 3-pointers in rapid succession. Then came an 11½-minute stretch in which they couldn’t score a field goal, and they ended up with a 63-60 loss to the 23rd-ranked Bluejays on Tuesday night. After scoring 31 points the first 13 minutes, the Panthers managed only 29 in the final 27. The Panthers held McDermott, the nation’s second-leading scorer at 25.2 points a game, to 14. But all the attention they gave to McDermott allowed Antoine Young to score a season-high 21 points for the Bluejays. Young, shooting 39 percent for the season, made 9 of 14 shots, with his only 3-pointer giving the Bluejays a five-point lead with 2 minutes left. The Bluejays (14-2, 4-1 Missouri Valley Conference) could never build a safe lead despite shutting down the Panthers (12-5, 2-3) for such a long stretch over the first and second halves. Marc Sonnen scored a season-high 15 points for Northern Iowa — all in the first half — and Anthony James added 10. The Panthers went 8 of 12 from 3-point range in the first half to build a double-digit lead and finished with a season-high 12 3s.